Uno Segway Unicycle - Embrio Rip-off?

I saw this post on Digg yesterday and was drawn to read the story.

I thought I was reading a follow-up about a similar concept vehicle called the Bombardier Embrio. Seeing as the Uno is obviously very similar in appearance and concept to the Embrio, I presumed that the story was going to be about how the Embrio now has a working prototype.

I must say, I didn’t remember the ‘inventor’ of the Embrio being 19-year-old Ben J. Poss Gulak, but all the same, I read on.

Essentially, the story goes like this:

Gulak went for a three week trip to China with his parents in 2006 and was appalled at the level of pollution in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, much of it produced by smoky two-stroke scooters and motorcycles. Being a budding inventor, he decided that electric powered transportation would be the answer.

He came up with a battery powered design built with angel iron, wheelchair motors and gyroscopes, a kind of uni-cycle Segway.

He had a series of failures, but was fortunate enough that robotics expert Trevor Blackwell came to the rescue. Blackwell had previously built a Eunicycle, a single-wheeled gyro-stabilized vehicle, as well as a two-wheeler that resembles a Segway.

Blackwell improved stability by refining the Uno’s gyro control system.

Next, Canadian custom motorcycle builder, John Cosentini of Motorcycle Enhancements, provided a Yamaha motorcycle frame to replace the angel iron and created a body from Styrofoam and fiberglass.

Gulak is flying to Shanghai to talk with a company about developing the machine and possibly putting it into production.

What is interesting about this though is that no where in the story is mention made of the Bombardier Embrio. You may say, that is because one if a non-working prototype, while the other is a working vehicle. I’ll lay out some more points for you to see if you think some credit should have been attributed to the Embrio.

• Bombardier location, Montreal, Canada.
• Ben J. Poss Gulak location, Toronto, Canada.
• Bombardier Embrio, first mention, 2003, widespread exposure in summer 2006.
• Gulak’s inspiration, summer 2006.

There are a couple of differences between the Uno and the Embrio.

• The Embrio proposed to use a hydrogen fuel cell.
• The Uno uses a battery.
• The Embrio has a single wheel.
• The Uno has two wheels side-by-side.
• The Embrio has front expanding safety wheels for low speed travel.

With these similarities, I am a little surprised that no mention was made about the Embrio providing inspiration for the concept and design.

Shred The Slopes On A Fuse Snowskate

I saw this on Gizmodo Australian Eidtion and just had to post it here.

All I can say is what took them so long to come out with one of these?

The Fuse Snowskate works similar to a normal skateboard; it uses four small skis instead of wheels and there are no bindings to restrict the type of tricks you can do.

Features:

• Comes complete fully assembled, including board, trucks and 4×4 kit.
• All boards have Fuse grip providing traction for winter conditions.
• Silver brand trucks, Plan B US made board.
• Fully adjustable internal spring system.
• Fast and durable high speed bases (Isospeed).
• Metal rail for ultimate control on ice

Now you can do all the shredding you want, without taking any bark off when you fall.

You can also buy them in Australia from FunkyBarry.

Check out the video below to see some Fuse action.

Flip Video Ultra Coming To Australia

You may have seen the talk around the Web about these great little video cameras called the Flip Video Ultra by Pure Digital Technologies.

You may even have thought they look so good that you have tried to go out and buy one, or failing that, tried to buy one online. That is pretty easy to do if you live in the US, but if, like me, you live in Australia, you will find that not only are they unavailable in the shops, but you can’t even easily get one online. Amazon and the like will not sell one, due to the lack of warranty for the Flip’s in Australia.

The other issue with the Flip Video Ultra, from an Australian perspective is that they are NTSC, which is not compatible with the Australian PAL system.

It would appear that I was stuck with not being able to get a Flip Video Ultra to try out. I was pretty bummed about this, so I emailed the PR company for Pure Digital Video and told them I needed one to try out. A short time later, one of the managers from Pure Digital Technologies contacted me to say that they now have both an NTSC & PAL version of the Flip Ultra certified and approved and that they would be sending me one.

The PAL commercial product will be available by mid-June and will appear in the European market first, before coming to Australia some time after this.

Flip Video Ultra Details

If you are not familiar with the Flip Video Ultra, it is essentially a compact digital video camera, that takes a lot of the hassles out of recording video and uploading to your computer and the Web.

This is by no means a high end camera, but the quality is acceptable enough and great for putting on youtube. You simply shoot your video, flip out the USB key and upload it to your computer. Dead simple.

The main one I am interested in is the 2GB Flip Video Ultra camera. This unit can capture an hour of video at 640×480×30fps and doesn’t cost a great deal more then the smaller capacity units.

Key features of the Flip Video Ultra

Simple to use, pocket-sized camcorder with one-touch recording and digital zoom

Holds 60 minutes of full VGA-quality video on 2GB of built-in memory; no tapes or additional memory cards required

Convenient USB arm plugs directly into your computer for easy viewing and sharing

Built-in software lets you easily e-mail videos, upload to YouTube and AOL, and capture still photos from video

Watch videos instantly on TV with included cable

Some of the specs:

Screen size: 1.5 inches (diagonal)

Screen resolution: 528 x 132 pixels

Screen type: Transflective TFT (for bright daylight)

Resolution: 640 x 480

Sensor: 1/4-inch VGA CMOS sensor; large (5.6 µm) pixels for maximum light sensitivity

Video compression: Pure Digital Video Engine 2.0

Frame rate: 30 frames per second (constant)

Video bitrate: 4.5Mbps (average–auto adaptive algorithm)

Video format: Advanced Profile MPEG4 AVI

Dimensions (H x W x D): 4.17 x 2.16 x 1.25 inches

PC connection: Built-in flip-out USB arm (up to USB 2.0 speed)

Speaker: Built-in speaker

Microphone: Built-in wide range microphone (improved sensitivity and accuracy)

More images over the page. Read more